End-of-life bill: The Access Criteria Are Being Further Extended
End-of-life bill: The social affairs commission has again aggravated the proposed bill for the “right to assistance in dying” by extending the access criteria for euthanasia and assisted suicide to the detriment of the protection of the most fragile.
A context of unprecedented haste
On 4th February 2026, a mere week after the rejection of the text by the senators at its first reading, the social affairs commission of the National Assembly started its second reading. The MPs had a mere 3 days to submit their proposed amendments. Some of them expressed their disagreement regarding such haste which is detrimental to a pacified debate on such a vital and sensitive subject. The schedule is supported by the government which has assigned the weeks allocated to its own texts whereas this concerns a proposed bill.
This debate is being conducted under a peculiar order of priority. Moreover, by starting with the debate on the euthanasia text ahead of that on palliative care, the commission is de facto admitting the idea that a new law on palliative care is in fact a mere excipient for swallowing the lethal pill of euthanasia and assisted suicide.
A pacified debate being made impossible
The MPs again attempted to clarify the term “assistance in dying” by calling for the naming of the very acts which it covers, namely assisted suicide and euthanasia. They were confronted with an obstinate refusal by the reporters on the grounds that the term “euthanasia” has been sullied by the fact that the expression “assisted suicide” goes against suicide prevention. Nevertheless, the term “assistance in dying” does according to article 2 consist in “authorising and accompanying” a patient who so wishes to self-administer a lethal substance, or to have it administered by a doctor or a nurse, if the patient “is physically unable to do so”.
The already vague criteria are being further extended
According to the text, five vague and unverifiable criteria must be jointly satisfied in order to be eligible:
- Being of adult age including when under legal protection
- Being of French nationality or living legally and steadily in France.
- Suffering from “a serious and incurable disease, through whatever cause, threatening life expectancy, in an “advanced” or “terminal” phase. The end-of-life situation has been deleted which potentially extends the scope of eligibility to hundreds of thousands of people.
- Exhibiting “constant physical or psychological suffering” which is “either refractory to treatment, or unbearable according to the person” if the person “chooses not to receive or to curtail” a treatment.
- Being “able to express their will in a free and enlightened manner”.
The commission deleted, through amendments submitted by the socialists and LFI (La France Insoumise, a radical left party), a measure which was intended to clarify the notion of “psychological suffering” by specifying that it alone could not “under any circumstances constitute eligibility for assistance in dying“. As underlined by Claire Fourcade, the ex-president of SFAP (French society for Accompaniment and Palliative Care) in a column for Le Figaro, “A patient on learning of his/her serious and incurable condition with threatened life expectancy (such as an advanced phase cancer without any symptoms) may experience major psychological distress and become eligible.” (…) The danger, is that one might respond to a period of anguish, by administered death, whereas an all-embracing accompaniment (psycho oncology, anxiolitic treatment, time, family support etc.) could succeed in attenuating such suffering.”
Suicide prevention is under threat from this proposed bill: it is impossible on the one hand to claim suicide prevention and on the other to respond to psychic suffering with death.
Reporter Olivier Falorni denied any collusion with suicide prevention. He referred to a report by the National Suicide Observatory which purported that there is no interaction between “suicide and assistance in dying”. However, the authors underline that “there is quantitatively little research and data on any possible links between suicide and assistance in dying”.
The text due to be examined in session from 16th February onwards is particularly harmful, with a restricted conscience clause which is not applicable to all the professionals concerned (pharmacists, nursing auxiliaries, etc.) nor to establishments. This is a blatant hypocrisy at a time when the legislator is visibly incapable of providing access to care, and especially to palliative care, for all and throughout the French territories. The obstruction offence makes this end-of-life bill the most repressive in the world.
Alliance VITA is calling for a multi-association demonstration in the vicinity of the National Assembly on 16th February and has launched a campaign appealing to MPs and the Prime Minister.
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